Small MPU – Page 609
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News
Japanese uber-producer lines up Kurosawa remakes
Kadokawa Haruki Jimusho, thecompany of uber-producer Haruki Kadokawa, has acquired the remake rights to theAkira Kurosawa classics Yojimbo and Tsubaki Sanjuro from KurosawaProduction. The purchase price, asannounced by Kadokawa Haruki Jimusho, is $2.8m (Y3000m).The company has indicatedthat, after it remakes the films for the Japanese market, it may makeadditional versions ...
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Warner Bros takes multi-territory rights to del Toro's Labyrinth
Warner Bros Pictures International has picked upSpanish and Latin American rights to director Guillermo del Toro's upcomingFranco era horror title Pan's Labyrinth.Filming is expected to begin thissummer on the co-production between Estudios Picasso and delToro, Alfonso Cuaron and Frida Torresblanco's new Spanish company OMM.Del Toro, Cuaron and Torresblanco will produce ...
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News
Hustle and Flow to open CineVegas fest
Craig Brewer's hip-hop drama Hustle & Flow will open the 2005CineVegas Film Festival, which runs from Jun 10-18.MichaelWinterbottom's 9 Songs,Rob Zombie's House Of 1,000 Corpses follow-up The Devil's Rejects, and Gus Van Sant's Cannes competitionentry Last Days arealso among the line-up.ChristopherWalken will receive the Marquee Award following on-stage interview, while ...
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News
Korean industry abuzz as top production houses set to merge
Sidus Pictures and Fun &Happiness, two of South Korea's most successful production companies, arepreparing to merge in an unexpected move that has set the local industrybuzzing. Sidus Pictures, launched in1995 as Uno Films under CEO Tcha Seung-jai, is widely considered Korea'sstrongest production house, having released 31 features including ChristmasIn August ...
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News
European Film Promotion elects new board
The members of European FilmPromotion (EFP) have elected a new Board of Directors at its general assemblymeeting during Cannes.The Board is composed of sixmembers and the term of office lasts for two years. Claudia Landsberger has beenre-elected as President and Christian Dorsch has been re-elected asVice-President, both ...
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Trust Film Sales whips up Storm sales
The promo of Swedishthriller Storm directed by MansMarlind and Bjorn Stein is selling quicker than most finished films on theTrust Film Sales counter. Thailand (Pacific Marketing), Mexico (Mandala), Brasil(California Films) and Estonia (Estin Film) have all fallen for Storm aftertwo screenings.Meanwhile,Greece's Rosebud and Italy's Theodora Film have picked up the ...
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Fortissimo scores flurry of Snow Cake deals
Fortissimo Filmshad a busy Cannes closing deals with several distributors the company hasn'tworked with before including Svensk which took Scandinavian rights to MarcEvans' Snow Cake.The company alsosold The Night Listener,starring Robin Williams, to Italy's Videa and Tsui Hark's martial arts epic SevenSwords to Filmax inSpain. Snow Cake and The Night ...
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Weinsteins sign finance deal, add three more to slate
Harvey and Bob Weinstein have reached agreement on an equityinvestment and a debt financing commitment for their new multi-media companyfrom New York investment bank Goldman, Sachs & Co. In the latest of a string of announcements from the CannesFilm Festival, the Weinsteins also revealed a strategic relationship with TarakBen Ammar's ...
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Reviews
Free Zone
Dir. Amos Gitai.Fr-Is-Jor-Bel. 2005. 94mins.Even his detractors would have to agree that Free Zone,the Cannes competition entry from Amos Gitai, is his most satisfactory picturesince Kippur. The first Israel-Jordan co-production on record, his roadmovie, which features three women each representing a facet of the Middle Eastconflict, is less ideologically insistent ...
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Reviews
Don't Come Knocking
Dir: Wim Wenders. US.2005. 122mins.Reunited for the first timein 20 years, Wim Wenders and Sam Shepard fail to rekindle the magic of theircollaboration on Palme D'Or winner Paris, Texas. Don't Come Knockingis a film of striking compositions and telling moments that never achieves thetender depths of emotion that distinguished its ...
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News
Renaissance on board for Morality Play
The UK's Renaissance Films has boarded medieval murder mystery Morality Play and AM Home adaptation The Safety Of Objects.Paul McGuigan, whose credits include Gangster No. 1 and Acid House, is to direct Morality, with Gangster's Paul Bettany starring as a renegade priest. Mark Mills has adapted the story from Barry ...
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Reviews
The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada
Dir: Tommy Lee Jones. US.2005. 120mins.A lone quest for justice becomes an ode to friendship andthe common ground between different cultures in The Three Burials OfMelquiades Estrada, a thoroughly respectable feature-length directorialdebut from Oscar-winning actor Tommy Lee Jones.An actor who believes thatless is more, Jones brings the same approach to ...
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News
Pretty Pictures falls for The Great Ecstasy
Paris-based distributor Pretty Pictures has taken Frenchrights on controversial Critics' Week title, The Great Ecstasy OfRobert Carmichael. The Thomas Clay directedfilm has shocked viewers thanks to a graphic gang rape scene, although reviewshave been generally positive. French sales and finance outfit Wild Bunch is representingthe film internationally.The UK film should ...
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News
Latido kicks up Longest Penalty deals
Spanish sales consortium Latido has seen brisk sales onSpanish box office hit The World's Longest Penalty.The company sold rights on the comedy to Italy (Blue Moon),Greece (Prooptiki), Portugal (Eco Filmes) and Thailand (Logo), and wasunderstood to be closing rights for an English-language remake as well.Penalty (El Penalti Mas Largo Del ...
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Reviews
Three Times
Dir: Hou Hsiao-Hsien Taiwan.2005. 120minsTaiwanese director HouHsiao-Hsien is in the mood for love with Three Times, a tryptich ofromantic stories in which the same actors (Shu Qi and Chang Chen) playdifferent characters in 1966, 1911 and the present day. An ambitious notionresults in a slight, wisp of a film that ...
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News
Hyde Park seals multiple deals on its debut sales slate at Cannes
Hyde Park International(HPI), the new international sales arm of Ashok Amitraj's Hyde ParkEntertainment, has reported a host of deals at its debut Cannes on Monkeyfaceand Premonition, the first two films it is 100% financing withoutinitial contribution from a major studio partner.HPI chief Lisa Wilson saidthat the market was hugely successful ...
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News
Belgian Child snatches Palme d'Or
It was a mix of old and new at the awards ceremony for the58th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday night. Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and LucDardenne (pictured here) walked off with the Palme d'Or for their gritty, bleak film TheChild (L'Enfant). At presstime, their film had yet to secure a North ...
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News
Un Certain Regard rewards Romanian Death
Un Certain RegardRomanian film The Death Of Mr. Lazarescu took top honours in the Un Certain Regard sidebar onFriday night in Cannes. The road movie set in an ambulance was directed byCristi Puiu whose short film Cigarettes And Coffee won a prize at Berlin in 2004.American director Alexander Payne oversaw ...
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Young film-makers win funding at Cannes project market
In its first outing, the Cannes Film Festival'sproject market for young film-makers - the Atelier - has had an impressive 50%success rate. Nine out of the 18 directors selected were able to completefunding for their projects which should begin shooting quickly.Budgeted between Euros 700,000 and Euros 1.73 million, thefast-tracked films ...
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Star Wars blasts international opening record
The invasion of the international marketplace by FoxInternational's Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith produced amassive estimated gross of $144.8m over the weekend, making the Lucasfilmproduction the biggest international opener ever.The international haul came from more than 10,000 screens in113 markets in 104 countries, with the film, ...